Don’t Let The Old Man In

I'VE been at a lot of funerals recently. It seems someone from my circle of friends, comrades, associates or neighbours is dying every week this last wee while. And sometimes more often than that. I console myself by reminding myself that it's the age I’m at. People were always dying. That’s part of the circle of life. But now I notice it more because its also part of my circle, my own  wee peer group.

Failure of Leadership 

The Irish government’s two-year term on the UN Security Council is at an end. Micheál Martin, now Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, claimed last week that the government had “achieved some real and tangible results". As evidence of this he pointed to the UN role in providing humanitarian aid in Syria and challenging Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. However welcome the Irish government’s role was in addressing these matters, the reality is that its time on the Security Council failed to match the ambitious targets it set two years ago. Its most obvious failure has been in providing leadership against Israel’s apartheid policies toward the Palestinian people.